Advisory Tutorials

This has been a challenging season in many regards. Unfortunately, Taos Avalanche Center is shutting down. Thanks to all those that have supported and believed in providing avalanche education and awareness. Stay safe out in the mountains and if you ever want to talk about conditions feel free to contact me at andy@taosavalanchecenter.org or call me at 781-572-5631.

Cold, cloudy and windy day. The storm on Tuesday night brought more wind than snow. Reports from the weather stations was showing an inch or two at most. It was hard to get good vis of the ridgetops, but we did get up into the NE and E side of Kachina by the waterfall. Below treeline was holding snow that seemed to be more supportable than on Tuesday for travel. Recent cold temps and the shallow snowpack below treeline has started to facet out the dense storms from November.

We did observe a natural avalanche on the NE face of Kachina that probably came out last night. We didn't have good enough visibility to get an idea of how high up it started our how big the crown was. Travel out onto the aprons we were getting widespread collapse and shooting cracks. We also experienced collapse near treeline.

Snowpit was dug right at treeline (11,570') on a NNE aspect that was wind loaded. On wind loaded slopes, we were finding 5 to 8 inches of wind slab that was on top softer faceting rounds. Stability tests were showing that the wind slab that had formed was not bonding well to the snow below it.

Photo 1: Collapse and shooting cracks in the apron of NE Avalanche Paths on the backside of Kachina Peak.

Photo 2: Avalanche Debris from a NE avalanche path on the backside of Kachina Peak